


Coming Back From the Brink

by ChickadeeChickadoo



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And medical care, Avengers stay together more, Cap is a good guy, Civil War, Disagreeing is a normal thing to do, Everyone Needs A Hug, Except Zemo, Friends manage to stay friendly, Gen, He's a bit more deranged than totally evil, It might be hiding, No one is evil, No one's probably gonna die, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Steve doesn't leave Tony behind in a broken suit in the snow, Therapy is a helpful thing, There's humor in here somewhere, This isn't gonna be long, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony is a good guy, Which is good for their relationship, Who is evil, a fix-it, but only kinda, everyone needs sleep, mostly - Freeform, probably, who knows - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:20:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27873689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChickadeeChickadoo/pseuds/ChickadeeChickadoo
Summary: A conversation happens out of order- and Steve Rodgers finds himself dragging two friends out of a bunker in Siberia. And life goes on.(On Hiatus for the next 18 months until I get back from my mission)
Relationships: Avengers & Avengers, James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, Peter Parker & Avengers, Steve Rogers & Tony Stark, Tony Stark & T'Challa
Comments: 30
Kudos: 37





	1. Chapter 1

“So was I.” Tony said, and Steve hesitated.

Bucky’s arm was over one shoulder, he was holding the shield in the other hand. Tony was lying on the ground. It was cold here.

And Tony was right- they were friends.

And Steve Rodgers did not leave his friends behind in the snow. In the cold. Not on purpose anyways. Steve lowered Bucky back to the ground, then moved over to Tony.

He looked down at Tony for a long moment, then took the shield and carefully wedged it back into the hole he’d made in the arc reactor.

“What are you doing?” Tony asked, and there was fear in his voice.

“Getting you out of here.” Steve said.

The question was- how?

He could drag him by a foot or an arm of something but even with the helmet that would probably bang his head into the ground- and Steve didn’t want to hurt him more…

And then he had an idea. He removed the rest of the helmet, lifted Tony’s head and slid his fingers between Tony’s neck and the suit, finding a grip there. That was good.

Steve stood up and began dragging Tony over to where Bucky sat.

He helped Bucky up, and with Bucky’s remaining arm over one shoulder and Tony dragging along behind them, he started walking.

“You aren’t doing this,” Tony said, loudly. “Just let me out of the suit and I can walk you idiot.”

Steve kept walking. One foot in front of the other. When was the last time he’d actually slept? He was so tired.

And they were both so _heavy_. He kept walking.

“Unlock the suit!” Tony shouted again. “I can walk! You don’t need to drag me out of here! I’m not even that injured! I was in a metal suit- well, I am in a metal suit- but when we were fighting you definitely weren’t. Of the two of us- one of us shouldn’t be walking. And it isn’t me.”

Tony was right. It was ridiculous- he was dragging Tony- a man fully capable of walking- across frozen ground with a shield jutting out of his chest because Steve didn’t have enough hands. “I’m not leaving you, and I’m not fighting you.” Steve said, “Not again. If I let you out you’ll try to kill him again. This way you’re frozen.”

Tony stopped yelling for about half a second. “I don’t see what you have against leaving me here. I’d be fine. Besides- you already chose him anyways.”

“If you’d won that fight,” Steve said, “How many of us would be alive?”

Tony stopped talking then. Steve almost felt guilty. He continued on, step by exhausting step- his body felt like a gigantic bruise- towards the plane.

…---…

T’challa wasn’t sure what to think when he saw Captain America dragging Iron Man behind him with one arm while supporting the Winter Soldier on the other side. The picture was almost comical- if one ignored the blood and the bruises and the missing arm.

Zemo was in T’challa’s plane- captured and unable to harm himself or others, awaiting trial.

None of the men in the Avenger’s strange line looked very good.

“Captain!” T’challa called. “May I offer assistance?”

…---…

It didn’t take long to plan it all out.

At first, they were going to have T’challa take Tony and Zemo back.

Tony couldn’t resist commenting, “And now you can abandon me without any guilt. You can say “Oh look- I was able to dump him off. Now I can go off with my best friend into the sunset.””

The fact that said best friend looked like he was moments away from passing out did help his mood- a little.

He wanted the man dead though, not unconscious. _He killed my mother._ And Cap couldn’t see that- didn’t understand what that was like-

He’d seen a video of his parent’s murder. Bucky had reached into the car and _choked his mother to death_. And Cap just wanted him to get over it?

“I can’t go back with you,” Cap said, “I’d get arrested and then who’d get everyone off the raft?”

“So you’re going with Bucky instead?”

“Yes.”

“He killed my mother!”

“It wasn’t his fault!”

T’challa coughed from the side. Both of them turned to him. Kind of. Tony still hadn’t been released from the suit, so his movement was limited to turning his head. “Are you sure he killed your mother?” T’challa asked. “Because I thought he’d killed my father- and he hadn’t.”

Tony paused. “I saw a video.” He said.

“So did I.”

Tony hesitated again.

“How long has Zemo had to plan this?” T’challa asked.

Tony looked over to Steve. “Since Ultron.” Steve said, voice soft.

“That’d be enough time.” T’challa said. and Tony knew he was right.

The plan- if the footage had been faked- was convoluted- but Tony couldn’t really say it hadn’t _worked_. And if it had all been fake…

Tony might have tried to kill an innocent man.

Well. Not innocent. He was the Winter Soldier. He’d killed a _lot_ of people. But- he would be more innocent than Tony had originally assumed.

…---…

Steve let Tony out of the suit a few minutes later.

“You still should have told me.” Tony said.

Steve looked at him for a long moment. “I almost did.” He finally said, “But I could never figure out how to phrase it. “Oh, and by the way- my dead buddy really isn’t dead and he murdered your parents. So… want to help me find him- and not kill him? Cause I feel like we should save the fellow actually.””

Tony shrugged. “Anything would’ve been better than this Spangles.”

And... Steve couldn’t say he was wrong. 

…---…

Tony, T’challa and Bucky were going to Wakanda to see if they could find out of Bucky had actually killed Tony’s parents- and to see if they could get Hydra’s stuff out of Bucky’s head.

Which left Steve to fly Zemo to jail.

He sighed. This- this would be interesting.


	2. Everyone is sad

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things tend to get worse before they get better  
> Though they already are pretty bad

Steve didn’t have any other clothes. And there weren’t other clothes in this jet.

So he was stuck in his suit and right now he was a terrorist. Or something. And he was supposed to drop Zemo off.

T’challa said he’d dealt with all the stuff so Zemo would actually get arrested if the police found him…

Still. Tying up the man in front of a police station and leaving him there made Steve feel ridiculous. He was supposed to be able to just hand the man over- he was supposed to be a hero. “Just stay here and they’ll find you here soon enough,” he whispered to the man, then he left.

He didn’t really feel like a hero right now.

He’d gotten so many people arrested- so many friends were trapped on that raft…

And Tony. Tony- Steve had known. He’d known that Bucky’d killed Tony’s parents and hadn’t said anything.

And Tony had figured it out on his own.

Steve hadn’t meant to hurt him. He never wanted to hurt him. But that didn’t change anything, because he had hurt Tony. Instead of facing up to his problems he’d ignored them and now…

Steve stepped back on the jet.

He still couldn’t quite remember the last time he’d slept. He really probably shouldn’t be flying right now, especially when it came to his track record with planes.

Still- he needed to get to Wakanda. He needed to see Tony and apologize again. He needed to see Bucky. He needed to find a way to get his friends out of the Raft.

Steve took a deep breath. And he got on the jet. _Wakanda next_.

…---…

Shield’s information dump was amazing. The Hydra files were always ridiculously encrypted, but Tony could find those easily enough. And get into them.

The problem was that the encryption made finding what you were actually looking for harder.

He was looking for proof- one way or another- that Bucky had killed his parents.

Honestly though- he wasn’t sure what he was going to do _after_ that. When he’d seen the video he’d seen red. He’d just wanted Bucky dead.

And now…

Was he really looking for proof just to see if he should murder Bucky or not?

And even if Bucky had killed his parents… the Winter Soldier had killed a lot of people. What gave Tony the right to say that his parent’s deaths were the tipping point- the point Bucky couldn’t come back from. The irredeemable action that meant he _deserved_ death.

Tony went back to his search. Wakanda technology was _nice._ He wondered why he’d never come here before. Well, obviously because he hadn’t known about it being like… this. Still.

The first thing Tony found was a mission report. A failure. Not his parents. He read it anyways.

The next he found was about how they’d trained him. About the chair. And… storage… of the Winter Soldier’s when they weren’t in use.

The more he read, the sicker he felt.

And for the first time, _It wasn’t his fault,_ actually seemed like a reasonable argument.

…---…

Bucky felt like something terrible was waiting just under his skin, something that was going to burst out without his permission.

He still had Hydra’s words inside of him.

He couldn’t control them.

He couldn’t stop himself.

He couldn’t trust himself if he couldn’t stop himself. If Hydra was still out there, they could control him. They could tell him to kill Steve or anyone else and he’d do it because he couldn’t _stop._

It terrified him.

He needed to go back under again. He needed to be somewhere that he couldn’t hurt anyone until they could get this stuff out of his head.

He would wait until Steve got back- then he’d tell him. And he’d say goodbye. He needed to do this though- he didn’t want to hurt anyone else.

….---…

Steve made it back to Wakanda to find his friend, still missing an arm, preparing to sleep for quite some time.

Willingly going to freeze so he wouldn’t hurt anyone.

Steve could still remember freezing. Unable to escape, knowing the he probably shouldn’t anyways in case someone could find his plane. 

The water rushing in.

It’d taken so _long_ to freeze. Frost had kept forming on his skin and he’d tried to brush it off but he could never be fast enough. He’d been so cold- so very cold…

He still had nightmares about it- about waking up and everyone he’d known, everyone he loved being _gone_. Having grown up without him. And Steve had ended up in a world so very different than the one he’d frozen in.

Everything was different. All the things he’d accepted as true were outdated now. Steve couldn’t help but feel like everything he was was being scraped away.

They called it progress. Not holding onto the past.

Steve called it losing himself. And when he’d seen Bucky- it was like one thing was right in the world.

And then Bucky had changed to, Bucky didn’t even remember him.

And now he was leaving.

Steve made himself watch Bucky go under.

He forced himself to breathe.

Then he stood up straight. No time to sleep- not yet. Tony was next.

Then the raft.


End file.
